As Steve Eckels studies the mesmerizing swirls of a piece of Polish flint, he sees the melody of the ancient stone.

“Tell me that’s not music,” he implores. “It’s hard to believe nature could” provide something with so much geologic rhythm.

Eckels, a guitar teacher at Flathead and Glacier high schools, has found a way to incorporate his rather newfound love of rocks into the classroom with a segment he calls “The Poetry and Music of Rocks.”

“When you look closely at a beautiful rock, you can discover that it possesses many of the same elements that are used to make a musical composition, a poem, painting or geographic design,” he said. “All of the elements of art are in the rocks.”

Eckels’ extraordinary collection of close to six-dozen belt buckles made from ornate rocks was the impetus for his innovative classroom study.

He came by his love of natural materials at an early age when his father, an artist and potter, would point out the design and pattern of flowers and encourage his children to study the aesthetics of their surroundings.

“My dad believed in beauty and function,” he said.

At the Kalispell Farmers Market three years ago, Eckels bought a pretty rock. Then he wondered if he could make it into a belt buckle.

Yes, it was possible and not that difficult to create an ornate belt buckle with that first stone. Then Eckels discovered Kehoe’s Agate Shop near Bigfork.

More rocks came into his possession.

“I’d go there once a month as a treat to myself,” he said. “They had some just the right size” for belt buckles.

He soon found a “rockaholic,” Don Smith, who has a garage full of rocks at his home and a shop called Darsroc on Trumble Creek Road. Finding that mother lode — and someone who could cut and polish his gems — enabled Eckels to continue his routine of buying one ornamental rock each month. He pays as little as $7 for some and has splurged on a couple of $50 dandies.

“One of the things that fascinated me was the idea I can wear something created millions of years ago,” he said.

Making belt buckles from his rocks was the perfect fashion statement.

“Men’s clothing is usually pretty boring, and men’s belts are really boring,” Eckels said. “My wife was concerned it would come across as conspicuous consumption, but it’s not. It’s beauty. It’s about aesthetics. It’s not about bragging.”

Now his belts are a way of generating conversation at school. It’s a way to get to know his students.

“I’m making room for conversation,” he said. “I wear a different buckle each day.”

Eckels’ students write poems about the rocks as part of their music and rocks study. It’s an invitation to unbridled creativity.

A snippet of Leighna Longoria’s poem offered this insight: “Silently they lay, Under the souls of our feet, Unseen works of art.”

A verse of Claire Mohatt’s poem shared this sentiment: “Underwater homes, Curling and joining with others. Ancient reminders.”

“In general, they get it and they like it,” Eckels said about the study. “They enjoy writing the poems.”

The comparison between music and rocks is not a new observation, Eckels pointed out. The Blackfeet Indians believed rocks could sing. As the story goes, their legendary “buffalo rock,” usually a fossil shell of some kind, could be heard singing from time to time on the prairie.

“Whoever found one [a buffalo rock] was considered fortunate, for it was thought to give a person great power over buffalo,” the First People website explains about the legend.

Eckels enjoys looking at this rocks because it’s a never-ending study of color, pattern and harmony.

“You can’t appreciate one until you look at it for a little while,” he said.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.